


What To Call You

by SteadyLittleSoldier



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Angst, Borderline Personality Disorder, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, First Meetings, Fluff and Smut, Gender Dysphoria, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, LGBTQ Themes, Living Together, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mentions of Crema Italy, Mpreg, Pregnancy, Smut, Summer Vacation, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 00:28:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 12,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16377953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SteadyLittleSoldier/pseuds/SteadyLittleSoldier
Summary: Oliver knows when to call his lover Elio and when Ellia.





	1. Preface

Following the sound of the hair trimmer, I find Elio in the bathroom. His eyes bloodshot. The sink filled with dark hair as it starts to clog.

Today he is a he. I know it from the t-shirt he is wearing. It is mine and hangs loosely on his lithe shoulders and hides every curve of his body. I know it from the anger and frustration on his face. I know it from the disgust he throws at his own reflection in the mirror. The disgust that makes his lips quiver. I know it from the fat tears that silently roll down his reddened cheeks. And the dead giveaway is his head. It is rid of most of the hair. His beautiful shoulder-length curls gone.

I find myself standing in the doorway, unable to figure out how to comfort him. I have seen him in similar situations before and nothing I have done has really worked so far. In the end, it is always Elio who is able to pull himself away from the demons that haunt him. I don’t want him to be the strong one right now because I know, or at least try to understand, how much strength it takes. And he will run out of energy. Perhaps he already has because he seems absent right now, as though he no longer knows where he stands or what he is doing. It’s not a mood swing as he sometimes thinks it is. It is a crisis that has no solution. None. Absolute hopelessness.

I slowly walk towards him so as not to startle him. I know he has seen me in the mirror. I know what to call him.

“Elio…”

He doesn’t give any indication of registering my call. I put my hand on his shoulder and rub it tenderly. “Elio...” I say again, not calling him, just saying his name, letting him know that I _know_ and that it is okay. He keeps trimming his hair even though almost all of it is gone. He has an uneven buzzcut now. And I keep rubbing my hands over his shoulders, waiting. I’m patient but the tears don’t stop. It’s been a while and I can tell from the way his arm trembles as he keeps running the buzzer over his empty head. I gently hold his wrist to stop him and he gives in. His hand drops at his side when I take the machine from him. He could use a shower or a bath to get rid of the tiny hairs but I know he doesn’t want to take his clothes off and face his femininity right now. I let him lean against me as I take him to bed. He curls in on himself automatically. Away from his own reflection now, the tears have stopped. I lie with him, spooning him, and when I try to soothe him again, he pushes me away with the little energy that he has left in him. Sometimes I wonder if I am only the lover to him when he is a she, if I am only Ellia's lover. I don’t want to mind. I know being with a man whose demeanor screams alpha male is hard for him, it’s a constant reminder. I want to be smaller for him so he can be the alpha when he wants to. But I can’t. So I pull the cover over him and leave the room.

 *

His eyes are puffy still when he walks out into the kitchen, from sleep or tears I can’t quite tell from the slight glance that I have stolen. I know he doesn’t like being stared at. By _anyone_. He is wearing my shirt still. Scratching the back of his neck, he sits down at the table beside me. His every stride exaggerating swagger.

I have been nursing a cup of hot tea, sitting with my hands holding the cup, warming them. Gingerly he takes one of my hands and presses it against his lips. He is apologizing. And showing gratitude. Guilt is what has gotten him up from the bed and brought him here. I want to tell him he doesn’t have to. But if he hasn’t initiated the talk that means he is going to ignore everything that has happened. I brush his cheek with the back of my fingers to show that.

“Want tea?”

He nods. I know his sinus is probably killing him as it always does after crying. I get him the promised tea. He hasn’t slept. Which means he is probably still in the same state, just calmer. He takes a sip of the hot drink with honey and ginger and stops the flinch when he gulps it down.

“Do you want me to take a walk?”

That’s our code. Code to let him know that I’ll get out of his hair if he wants. That I’ll take this masculinity that society has inflicted on me, that makes me who I am, I can take all that and get out for as long as he needs me to. But staring at the cup in his hands, he shakes his head and I see his long lashes catch moisture.

“It’s okay, you know? I can go out with friends too. Crash at my sister’s place. I’ll call Marzia if you don’t want to be alone.”

He keeps shaking his head at every suggestion. I cannot tell anymore if he is filled with guilt or he doesn’t want me to leave. It might hurt if I don’t leave. It might hurt if I do. He might want me to leave. But the guilt will eat him whole if I do leave. We have no options. None. In the end, he has no choice. The tip of his nose gains color, and as soon as I touch his shoulder murmuring, “it’s okay”, he tumbles into my arms and howls. Howls the way dogs cry in the dead of night.

The tea grows cold.


	2. She

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yesterday I wasn't even sure if uploading this was a good idea (I'm still not tbh), now look who pulled out another chapter from the garbage can the next day...
> 
> This is before the incident of chapter 1  
> Warning: slight smut ahead

At first, I think the sound coming from the bedroom is Ellia. But it takes me a second to realize that it is not. I would know her moans from across an ocean and it isn’t her. I take the wooden spatula out of the sauce that I am making and lick it, tasting. The noise doesn’t stop and, at this point, I have no doubt about what it is. There are two voices. Turning the stove off, I walk to the bedroom.

“What in the unholy hell is this?” I say smirking, a little surprised.

Ellia is in her green chiffon nightgown. _Only_ in her nightgown. Leaving nothing to the imagination. She has been in it from last night. She is sat on the swivel chair in front of the computer, the soft fabric resting on her thighs, an amusing smirk on her face as she casually swings slightly from side to side. Her thumb delicately resting between her teeth.

“I don’t know how I ended up here, I was working,” she says without removing her eyes from the screen.

I walk to her and offer her the spatula to taste. She licks and hums.

I furrow my brows at the screen. There are two boys going at it. “Is this online or…?”

“Of course, I didn’t download it,” she says, standing up and pushing me onto the chair and sitting between my legs, leaning back on my chest. He takes the spoon from my hand and licks it clean while I curiously stare at the screen. The boys there are incredibly busy and one is sat on the bed licking the other’s cock now. “I wish we could do that,” she says, almost lazily, nosing the underside of my chin. 

I nuzzle her ear, the tiny soft hair right behind it, and place a tender kiss on the shell. “We can, you know.” And as though to remind her of last night, I pull her legs up and snake my hand between them.

Ellia lets out a long breath and lets her head fall back on my shoulder while I massage her clitoris. “No… not like… You, to me.”

Then it hits me. Of course. “Strap-on, maybe?”

“That’s-” Ellia laughs, closing her eyes, a little out of breath now.

I let a finger dip into her and her breath catches, her back arching. She squirms a little against me, letting out a tiny huff. There is just one pearl button on her nightgown and undoing it undoes the whole thing. Pale porcelain skin against emerald chiffon. I devour wherever I can reach. I salivate and wet her where my mouth traces her shoulder, her neck. She turns and offers me her slightly open mouth.

“We can try that, right?” I grumble against her lips.

Reaching back and holding the back of my neck, Ellia hums and leaks onto my palm.

 

Most days, it is this easy. Life isn’t always me asking my love if she wants me to get out of our apartment. We are usually happy, the two of us, grateful for finding one another. Grateful to have this life together.


	3. Suits and Gowns

Elio wears hats to class. He doesn’t have a big collection, but it’s enough to hide his insecurity with his buzzcut. He would sometime wear hats to tuck his long hair into it before he shaved them off. His friends are used to this change by now. But there are people who, with no intention to harm him - would ask him things or be surprised and let him know of their surprise. These work as a reminder.

It doesn’t always upset him. But he calls me sometimes. And I know by his tone that he is either trying to distract himself or trying to make himself believe that there is someone in his life who understands, who knows, whose presence makes him feel more grounded and is the answer to the constant query of 'who am I?'.

As for me, I love running my hand over his spiky hair whenever he lets me, or when he is asleep, almost as much as I loved running my fingers through his lush curls.

I notice him wearing lipstick sometimes that brightens the color of his lips. I notice because I have worshiped and memorized the color of them, every shade that they take with weather change and bites. But I know enough not to point it out to him as long as he doesn’t want me to. I just caress his cheeks and tell him that he looks beautiful, that he  _ is _ beautiful. 

He wears beanies too. The ones that gather at your nape. Once his hair starts to grow past his ears, he tucks them into the beanie.

There’s always one in his bag, even in the days he gives zero shits about his buzzcut. 

 

But it’s before his hair has barely come to his forehead that I find him in front of the mirror, applying brusher on his cheek.

He is wearing the bridesmaid gown that his friend has sent for him. The wedding is this weekend and Elio has already declined. But knowing him (a little), his friend has sent everything nonetheless and has called me four times already to get updates, asking if Elio has changed his mind. ‘She doesn’t have to do anything, none of the duties, just… be here,’ she begged through the phone.

 

I smile. He stops for a second when he sees me, but smiles back when I wrap my hands around him from behind and, placing a kiss on his neck, rest my chin on his shoulder.

“Just trying this on," he says, gesturing at the dress. "Jena has sent me like a million texts."

“You don’t have to explain,” I say softly, kissing his neck again. “You look absolutely gorgeous.”

Shaking his head, he huffs out a mocking laugh as he screws his lip gloss shut, looking down. “Sometimes I think you just force yourself to be positive all the time.”

My hands loosen from his middle. I can’t say his words don’t sting sometimes. But unlike others, I know where it is coming from. And it’s not coming from his spite for me, but his spite for himself. I don’t know which is worse. And I know replying to him will only make him lose control and drag him back to the day I found him in the bathroom buzzing his hair off. I don’t want that. He has come so far as to be able to put on a dress while he is Elio still. So I silently leave the apartment as he scrubs the makeup off with a napkin. 

 

I come back about half an hour later with a paper bag in my hand. Elio is sat on the floor, leaning against the wardrobe, tapping on his phone. His makeup not properly removed but he has changed into his trousers and shirt. I shake the bag in his eye line.

He looks up. “What?”

“I got something for you.”

He tries to grab it, but instead, I give him my hand and make him stand up. “If you hate it, just say it. But have a look at it first, okay?” 

Elio exaggerates a sigh at my playfulness and rolls his eyes.

I take him to the mirror and have him close his eyes. From the bag, I pull out a dark brown wavy wig and adjust it onto his head. It sits perfectly, the ends touching his shoulders. It is the closest I could find to his natural hair, but it’s not nearly as beautiful as his own hair. Nothing can be as beautiful and there is no denying that I miss it. But it serves the purpose for which I bought it.

By now Elio already knows what it is but he doesn’t say anything.

“Open your eyes,” I say.

He does and stares at his reflection. I see his eyes well up and he offers a timid smile.

“Now can I tell you’re gorgeous?”

 

By Saturday, Elio is okay with the dress, the wig, the makeup, the bouquet, and people calling him by his given name. But there is a suit packed in the car as usual, just in case. And a hat.

It is not like his friends don’t understand. Elio is afraid to talk. Sometimes he fears that they will take him lightly or think that he is crazy. But often times he wants to forget about it himself. It’s not always easy for him to talk about these things. Mostly he keeps himself distracted. As much as possible, he doesn’t let his life revolve around that. “There’s a lot more to a person than just their gender identity,” he says. “It’s an infinitesimal part of life; necessary to live, but nothing to stress over.” And it confuses him when it causes the biggest anguishes of life, when it makes it difficult for him to continue to breathe. But true to his word, our life does not always revolve around this. Yet often times it affects us, our day-to-day activities, and - to my worst fear - our relationship. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even an hour ago I said to myself that I will never update it. I've written like five more chapters of this fic but I always get cold feet before updating this one. It's 3 in the morning and I'll probably regret this decision when I wake up.  
> Please do let me know if some parts of it seem unclear because it's not very comforting writing this fic, so it's hard for me to tell if I'm doing a really bad job as a narrator.


	4. Switch

Sometimes, it is as though there is an on and off switch. That is not true, of course. I only wish everything was as simple as an on and off switch. No. But the switch happens right in front of my eyes when I am about to enter her. She stops me. “No,” she breathes against my lips. Two of my fingers are deep in her and my cock in aligned with her entrance. I stop and pull back to look at her. It’s not Ellia.

He takes my fingers out and pushes them against the tight muscle of his anus. “Here…”

I look into the hazel orbs, because I know he is serious but I don’t understand it. “Elio…”

The muscle under my fingers is tight and dry, so very unlike the place my fingers were in mere seconds ago. We have never done this before.

He pushes my hand again lightly. “Here.” I see his eyebrows crease slightly.

“I… we need to talk-” I begin to sit up but he has a death grip on me.

“No. Here,” he says without meeting my eyes, frantically kissing down my neck. 

“Elio, I ca- I don’t know how.”

“ _ Here, _ ” he repeats impatiently, shoving my hand. My fingers are slick with his fluid.

“Please, try to be rational-”

Elio jerks and looks up at me. His mouth open in dying pants, his brows furrowed in surprise, disbelieve and disgust, questioning me how I could have said such a thing.

Before he can open his mouth, I scramble. “I’m sorry. Baby, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-” I say pushing his hair from his forehead and kissing his temple, cheeks, the fleshy bump under his eyes.

He doesn’t respond for a while, doesn’t stop me from placing kisses all over his body either. When I kiss down the slight bump under his belly button (that I call his ‘half doughnut’) and kiss his genital tentatively, testing the water, he pushes my head away. I look up at him. He is looking away at the shut window of our bedroom as though he longs to be out, out of this room, this apartment. 

I climb up and take his face in my hands, but I don’t make him face me. I caress his cheeks, his hair, his ear. “Are you mad at me?”

He slowly shakes his head. He is not mad. He feels alone. Sometimes I cross lines without knowing. Since the beginning of our relationship, if I’ve focused on anything constantly, it’s to try to fully understand him. I fail more than I care to admit. And I’ve failed again. And it is as though one slip has Elio lose all his faith in making anyone understand it.

“Baby…” I want him to know, I want him to know. “Elio.”

When he turns his face around, it’s not before closing his eyes and letting the tears that have gathered slide down. “Oliver…?” he calls weakly. 

I rest my forehead against his. “Yes, baby, I’m here. I’m here.”

“Please, Oliver, please.” 

“Are you absolutely sure?”

“No.” 

“Babe-”

“I need this. Need you.”

 

I fish out a small bottle of olive oil. I have next to no knowledge about what we are about to do. But I know enough to know that we need some sort of lubrication. And olive oil seems good as anything to me. 

I have led a very simple life. I’ve never been adventurous when it came to my sex life.

And we have never needed to use lube before.

When I get in the bedroom, I find Elio in my shirt, but naked otherwise, and waiting for me. The sleeves pushed up to his elbows, the shirt loosely buttoned but it lets me know that his breasts are off limits tonight that I usually like to fondle and kiss. I am, in no way, to remind him of their existence. 

He has turned the lights off and let the windows open to let a lazy blue light in. He is lying now, staring out of the window, with his hand under his head.

“Is this ok?” I ask, showing him the bottle.

He nods and sits up slowly. “How do you…”

We shuffle for a bit before we settle in our previous position - Elio lying on his back and me on top of him. 

My hands shake as I pour a bit of oil on my fingers, careful not to spill and scared out of my mind. I get my fingers to the muscle and watch him hiss. “Cold,” he says.

When I spend too much time just massaging, he urges on, telling me to start putting my fingers in. I want to tell him to be patient, but I can sense that he is impatient for a whole other reason. I am not in the least bit sure about all this. So I caress his thighs, shin, his belly to buy time and keep him calm while I take my time pushing a finger in.

I don’t believe that he is in the least bit ready when he runs out of patience. His brows knit and he tuts before he pushes my shoulder and makes me lie on the bed. He has already mounted me when I realize what he is doing. 

“Elio, just…. fuck,” I say, a little out of breath as he starts massaging my length with the oil. “Can we just.... can we...”

And before I can understand anything through the haze of arousal, he starts pushing himself on me. I watch him make faces, at first of pleasure, then of pain. I try to stop him when a tear rolls down his cheek. But he is determined and I am so, so afraid.

When he starts shaking, I try to softly push him off me. “Elio, no. No.” He doesn’t stop. I panic and I shove him so hard that he falls back on the bed. “I said no!” I yell and pull out.

He lets out a single doleful wail. 

He curls in on himself, hiding from view.

 

I feel the urge to sob, only now realizing that I’ve already been crying. I don’t have the strength to stop myself. I bury my face in my palm and, huffing, cry for I don’t know how long. But when I look up at him, he is still in the same position. His chest rising and falling with suppressed sobs.

My whole body is trembling uncontrollably as I gather him onto my lap. He gives like a rag doll. Kissing his hair, I sway back and forth. I apologize many times, my voice shaking. He doesn’t say anything. He is bleeding. I will have to convince him to take him to a doctor.


	5. Prior Knowledge - Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first meeting

The first time I see her, she is Ellia. 

I am on the subway with my headphones on, going to work. Even though I am completely focused on the music playing in my ears, I start to notice something, someone throwing glances every now and then. I try not to seem too flustered and lower the volume of the music.

When it happens again, against my better judgement, my head snaps in the direction of the purposeful glance. I see a girl sitting about twenty feet away, caught off guard, but only for a second. She is offering me a smile the next moment. Not an apologetic smile, not a hey-stranger smile. A knowing smile, as though she knows me, as though she had prior knowledge of our meeting. Then the smile turns mischievous.

My eyebrows crease as I smile back. I think I know her.

She touches her the top of her ear and I frown even more, confused. She tucks her dark brown locks behind her ear and touches her the place again. It takes me a couple more seconds before I realize that she is trying to tell me to touch my own ear, and I do as indicated, I touch my right ear and find nothing. 

She rolls her eyes comically and buries her face in her delicate palm, smiling and shaking her head. She has beautiful ivory skin, that seems, if you were to touch it, it would dip in and make space for your fingertips easily. Her dark trimmed eyebrows are a beautiful contrast. So is her shoulder-length, chocolate curls. I have seen her before... 

I watch her stand up and advance towards me. Her white chiffon skirt gently brushing her knees. She takes the empty seat beside her and immediately touches my left ear. I let her. She takes out a tiny artificial daisy from behind my ear and holds it in front of me.

“Oh,” I say simply, a bit awestruck.

“Yes, oh,” she replies smiling. “It looks cute though.” She tilts her head to the side. “I just thought you should be made aware. Now you can wear it back.”

“I uh- thanks.” I take the flower from her and duck my head, fearing getting caught blushing.

I had tucked the flower there to make my goddaughter - who is also my niece - laugh while playing with her this morning while I got breakfast with my sister. I totally forgot about it after and my sister had perhaps thought it was a great joke to let me leave like that.

I tell the stranger that, but before she can react, we stop at her station. She smiles apologetically and bids farewell before getting off. I watch her from behind. 

I’ve seen her before.

I jump out the door before it closes properly, even though my station doesn’t come for another twelve minutes. She is walking away. But before I can catch up, she turns around, eyes seeking. Then she smiles when her eyes find mine. That all-knowing smile again.

“Why does it feel like I’ve seen you before?”

She chuckles. What a lovely sound. “That is the cheesiest of all pick-up lines.”

“No, no, I’m serious. I like ah… I think I like saw you on the train maybe, but I can’t quite remember.”

“Do you take the train daily?”

I nod.

“Then maybe you have. And I didn’t notice. Although I’m surprised I didn’t see you considering how big you are.”

I am surprised at how easily it all comes to her. Looking down, I blush yet again, even though I don’t know if she means it in a bad way or not. The flower is still in my hand. Without thinking much, I slide it through a lock of hair behind her ear. She is taken aback but recovers quickly. She smiles with her teeth showing this time. “Suits you even more.”

 

Her name is Ellia she tells me, and when I compliment it, she tells me how it means something different in various languages but if you dig deep, it actually expresses the same thing, and how language can be deceiving.

We keep walking as we talk. I tell her my name and that I am a professor. She doesn’t make a face like other girls do when they hear of my profession. She is in music school she says.

I don’t know where she is taking me. For a long while, it doesn’t even register that I was actually walking with her in a certain direction. That is until, chuckling, she points out I might be running late. I, in fact,  _ was _ running late. 

We exchange numbers.


	6. Prior Knowledge - Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have seen _her_ before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> continuation of chapter 5

On the second week of our chit-chatting via texts, I ask her out. I want to take her to a nice restaurant for dinner but she refuses the idea.

“I want to talk to you. I feel weird talking while eating in a fancy restaurant. Let’s walk in a park and get street food instead?” 

I don’t care where we meet as long as I get to see her again and know her more. Taking a walk seems perfectly fine to me. But when I offer, she refuses to get picked up. “I’ll meet you in the park, okay?”

Okay.

 

She is wearing all black when I see her walking towards me. Her hair down and her lids heavy with dark eye makeup. She looks absolutely stunning.

We talk for hours and hours, but I miss her knowing smile. She tells me how she grew up mostly with her mother in Milan after her father got a job at Harvard. They would spend every summer and Hanukkah together though, they still do, in their villa in a tiny Italian town. Her childhood sounds magical as she describes how she grew up with no tv, a huge library and a grand piano that belonged to her great-grandfather, Elio, who she never met. She was supposed to be named after him before her parents found out that they were going to have a girl. 

She lives alone now in an apartment. And when I ask if she likes being alone - because as naive as I am, I take her for the type - she yet again amazes me with her reply. “No one really likes being alone. But I’ve learned to live with it. People who claim to love being alone imagine a perfect person beside them when they are alone - perfect to them. And they prefer being alone with their fantasies rather than being with or surrounded by the wrong people.” 

I stare at her for a while with the hotdog in my hand that I bought for us.

“Why don’t you live with your dad then?”

“I um-” she thinks for a while, gathers her words, which makes me aware that whatever she is going is say next is not a light subject for her, and is well planned. “It’s not so simple for me. I mean don’t get me wrong, I love my dad, he’s a great dad. But I have a- um, I go… I don’t always feel comfortable around the opposite gender. Not even my own father… if that makes any sense. It’s weird. It’s not their fault, it’s mine.”

I don’t understand. “Can you elaborate?”

She looks at me now and smiles, tight-lipped. “I don’t want to. Not right now.”

“Do you feel comfortable around me?”

“I would have left by now if I weren’t.”

I smile, relieved, and nod.

“I haven’t yet been overcome with the discomforting feeling when I’m with you or when I’m talking to you. See I have guy friends that I feel completely at ease with. But sometimes that changes, rarely, but it has happened before.”

All this confuses me and I frown at her worriedly.

She chuckles and touches my shoulder. “Don’t be so serious about it, Oliver. I’m fine and I’m sorry that you have to hear all this on a first date.”

Our conversation then takes a different turn as she asks me about my boring childhood. I was raised in a slightly conservative Jewish family in New England. I tell her that I have a sister who now lives just a couple of blocks aways from my apartment with her husband and kid. She keeps asking me questions about myself, maybe partly because she really wants to know me, but mainly because she no longer wants to talk about herself. I can see through her mascara and nervous smiles that she is not fine.

She doesn’t let me drop her home. She calls an Uber instead and, at the moment of goodbye, leans in. Thinking she is going for a kiss, I lean down as well. But she sighs and places a kiss on my cheek. “Let’s meet again sometime, yeah?”

 

* * *

Memory is a strange thing. You can’t always tell which one is real and which you have made up.

I see her again on the subway weeks after our date. As days passed, our texting has become less frequent. I gave her the chance to ask for the second date. I didn’t want to suffocate her.

I frown upon seeing her after all this time. I have seen her before. I’m sure.

She has cut her hair off and the mane that remains is tucked under a big snapback. Earphones dangling from her ears. Baggy pants clinging onto her lithe waist, and a black shirt that is twice her size hang from her slight shoulders, covering the whole of her body. She sits with her legs spread, her elbows resting on her knees as she keeps tapping on her phone. Exaggerated swagger. Anybody who doesn’t know her would fail to guess her gender. I have seen  _ her _ before.

 

As I close the distance, I realize that she hasn’t cut her hair off but she is wearing a wig.

Taking the seat beside her, I smile. We talk the whole way but she is different. I almost feel like I am talking to a different person. When she smiles, it’s one-sided. She keeps scratching the back of her neck and tightening her cap. When I change my mind and ask her if she would like to go out again this weekend, she mumbles something. I ask again.

“I dun- Oliver, you…” she closes her eyes and looks down. “Oliver, you’re perfect in every possible way, and I like you. Very much. And I am not just saying that. I’m truly surprised that someone hasn’t already snatched you up. But I’m… I don’t think I am ready to be in a relationship right now.” She tentatively looks up at me.

There is a screwing pain in my stomach as though my insides are being tangles with themselves. I smile through it. “Can we at least stay friends?”

 

Of course, we don’t stay friends. How can we stay only friends? We go out four times “as friends” before she kisses me.


	7. Songs of Innocence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _pour toujours_ \- forever

 

I name him. I give him his name. He is mine.

How often is it that you get to name your lover? It is as though I have birthed him, and by doing so, given birth to a part of myself. And it hurts.

 

 

**Sunday | Dawn**

 

“How do you know?”

I smile.

He listens to my heart beating, my breathing. His head resting on my chest. “I haven’t told you. Not much.”

“I’m learning. What you said was enough. I don’t want you to pressure yourself to explain everything to me, because it is impossible, and it will frustrate yourself even further.”

“Feelings don’t have words. We’ve just named the most common ones and they will never suffice.”

"What makes a chair a chair." I kiss his head, running my fingers through his hair. “Let me learn on my own. We don’t need words.”

He hums. “I want a binder.”

It doesn’t surprise me. “I’ll get you one. I’ll look for it online.”

“I’m not sure I will wear it. I just want to...”

“I know.” 

The first rays of the autumn sun start to intrude our private moment. We haven’t slept all night. Haven’t been talking much either. We just held each other. Me caressing his shoulders, his back, observing his breathing, hoping he can rest.  
And him just thinking, thinking. 

“Have you ever thought about going to therapy?” I say.

“I did, but…” He shrugs. “I dunno, I feel like if I go and then however I see things after that, it will be someone else’s vision working through me. My thoughts won’t be my own. It will forever be influenced by someone else. And that terrifies me.”

“That’s not how therapy works, you know.”

He shrugs again. “Doesn’t help that feeling.”

“But talking to the people in your life might influence you just as much.”

“It’s different. If I go to therapy, we’ll be focusing on my problems,” he says, his tone going higher with each word. “The thing I did think about is top surgery. But what if I want them back?” He sighs. “It shouldn’t matter, you know. I know it shouldn’t… this... what defines what, putting things in a box, gender and all that. It’s all human construct. But I still let it affect me.”

“Well, you are human.”

There’s silence in which I feel him thinking. Going against what we have just settled on, he wants to say something. It’s not an easy task to make your brain shut up, less so for him, to stop your thoughts from jumping from one dark place to another without a thread. I want him to know that he doesn’t always have to be the one looking for a solution. Why should there _be_ a solution? “You can be a boy, you know… when you want to be. A girl, a  _ ‘they’ _ when you want to be.”

For a second I think he is going to scold me, but instead he looks up at me, and after a moment, cracks a smile, chuckling.

“I’ve been doing some research,” I explain myself.

“That’s… I don’t know… I don’t wanna say ridiculous, but… nobody’s gonna maintain that. Too much work.”

“ _ I _ will. Will that suffice? For now?”

He simply leans up and kisses me in answer.  _ “ _ _ Pour toujours.” _

 

 

**The night before**

 

“ Elio,” I whisper.

He doesn’t respond. 

“Elio,” I repeat and dare to touch him on the shoulder.

He hisses and turns away from me in the dry tub.

I take my hand away but call him again.

“What is your problem?!” he yells; I am glad he has the energy to.

I am calm. “Come out of there, let me take care of you, Elio.”

“Why are you calling me that?”

“Because that’s your name.”

 

I don’t know how long he has been in here. He has his phone with him. I thought if I gave him time, he would come out on his own. But he hasn’t. He hasn’t eaten the whole day and his phone has died. I asked if he wanted me to leave, he didn’t reply. I made lunch and offered him a plate, he didn’t reply. I don’t know what he might do if go back to my apartment. I am always afraid.

He was fine, or he seemed to be, when I got here this morning to spend the weekend with him as we had planned. In a merry mood, I was teasing him and calling him by his given name, again and again, to nag him, when, after a shadow clouded his features, he said, stern, “please, stop calling me, Oliver.” He made me breakfast, asked me to dig in, went to the bathroom and didn’t leave.

I tuck locks of his hair behind his ear and cup his face. “Elio.”

He looks at me. "Oliver?"

I don’t dare turn the lights on. From the light that is seeping through the slightly ajar door of the bathroom, I can see that his eyes are dry and anything but angry. “Elio, Elio, Elio…”

This identity that only I know exists, that I love equally because Elio and Ellia are not two separate beings, and neither is false. He is not split into pieces, he is a whole. And if giving him another name saves him from this torture, even for a few moments, then I am willing to give him a thousand names.

 

 

 


	8. Our Fearful Trip is Done - Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"Here Captain! dear father!_  
>  This arm beneath your head!  
> It is some dream that on the deck,  
> You’ve fallen cold and dead."
> 
>  
> 
> \- WALT WHITMAN

We spend one summer in Italy, after which Elio keeps insisting on going to France, California, India, every summer. Anywhere but Crema. I don’t mind. As long as I have Elio with me, I am prepared to go anywhere. But I love Italy, Crema, the villa, the orchard, his spot which was also Monet’s spot, the joint beds that we shared, lazy breakfast in the morning and swimming at night with Elio’s naked body glistening in the moonlight. Him whispering Whitman's words into my ear again and again in the afterglow,  “Oh captain, my captain.”  
Me mock telling him off. “Don’t say that.”  
“Why?”  
“It’s sad.”  
“But it’s beautiful." Then his soft chortle. “I’ll write you a different ending.”  
I don’t even mind the student they invited for the summer who we have to share a joint door with. I have to remind Elio to be so so quiet every night. Thank god for the ceiling fans and their dull white noise, the cicadas, the summer breeze. And my Elio's sweet sweet moans that are born for my ears only.

I thought we were on the same page about this new student, Elio and I. His parents are hosting him, Marius, _we_ aren’t. So we don’t feel the need to do anything more than greet him whenever our paths cross. I thought we were more focused on making this vacation the best summer of our life together until one day I catch Elio, from across the yard, throwing side glances at me and Marius discussing Lalon Shah by the pool. I know him enough to know that the slight, almost non-visible crease between his brows as he sips on his lemonade is a sign of something not right. I know it from the way his back is quite not touching the backrest of the chair. He needs me.

I excuse myself from Marius, a bright young anthropologist from Romania, and go to join Elio and his parents at the small table under the guise of craving lemonade. As I sit beside him, I touch his back, it is rigid. I massage his neck, his shoulder as I gulp down half the glass’ content.  
His hands are on the edge of the seat, as though he is about to stand up at any moment now. But he doesn’t and his breath grows heavy.  
“You okay?” I ask, as is my habit. When I look at him, he is staring at his father, then his mother, then at the orchard, and back at his father. “Hey,” I say softly. That makes his parents look up from their book and magazine.  
Elio notices this, and the crease between his brows grow more prominent. He tuts and arches away from my touch. “Just let me be for one goddamn second,” he mutters.

Despite being the only child of his parents, Annella and Samuel never treat him like a child as parents of spoiled children tend to (even though Elio will tell you otherwise). They don’t scold him for being rude, they don’t try to solve our problem for us. So when Elio gets up and marches into the villa, they sigh and offer me a smile before going back to their work.

I leave him alone. Send him a text saying he can call me if he needs anything. He leaves it on read. At least he is checking his phone.

 

...

 

“Mafalda wasn’t pleased." I stand at the doorway, a plate in hand, waiting for him to reply. "She cooked the fish Anchise caught this morning, the way you like it.” 

He is sat on the bed, phone in hand. He doesn’t reply. 

I go to sit in front of him and offer him the plate. “Don’t worry, I heated this up for you.” He hates cold food.

He keeps looking at the phone.

“Take a bite at least?” I offer him a spoonful.

He doesn’t take it. “Does he know we’re together?”

It’s impossible for anyone to not know that we’re together. We are not very discreet. But I don’t understand his question. “Who?”

He doesn’t answer.

I think about it for a moment. “Marius?!” I chuckle. “Oh, baby, you’re jealous?”

“I’m not jealous. I don’t want anyone to look at you the way I look at you.”

I put the plate on the bedside table and move to sit closer to him. “Have you seen yourself when you look at me?”

He smiles grumpily at his phone.

“No one can ever look at me that way. Much less Marius. He’s just a little intimidated I think. He’s spending his vacation in a villa housing two professors.”

Elio huffs out a small laugh and finally puts his phone away, taking my hand in his hand. He plays with my fingers for a while. 

I let him. I comb his hair with my fingers, tuck locks behind his ears, flick some that have fallen over his forehead.

“What were you talking about?” he says.

“Philosophy.”

“Of course.”

“Of course,” I say before leaning in to capture his lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to be continued


	9. Our Fearful Trip is Done - Part 2

The next day, after lunch, when the house is quiet and rumbling with the sound of drowsy breathings of the people slipping in and out of slumber, I sneak into Samuel’s office in hopes of picking out a couple of books. Elio’s father and I, we have grown even closer over the weeks that we’ve spent living under the same roof. Elio has the tendency of handing over the phone to me every time Samuel facetimes him. That’s how I was first introduced to him, Elio just unceremoniously thrusting the phone into my hand, nonchalantly informing his father that I am his boyfriend - a word that sounds unfamiliar to me. Elio thought I was just the sort of person who would click with his scholarly father. As it turns out, I am. So when I find Samuel sitting on the maroon couch instead of finding the office empty, I smile. He simply peers over the papers in his hand and pats the seat beside him. 

“How is Ellia?”

“Taking a nap.” I avoid answering the question. 

He nods. “You’re worried.”

I press my lips together. Guilty. “I can’t help it.”

“Try to.”

I sigh. “I’m always trying to help him. I’m always worried.” 

He hasn’t left the room the whole day.  At this point, I don’t even know myself how he is. I thought we talked through the problem, that we were okay now. But something was still bothering him. He used his jealousy of Marius to throw me off the scent, to distract  _ himself _ . And I was stupid enough to believe it.

“That’s not what I said,” said Samuel, smiling calmly. “But as her father, I know what that must feel like. We always worry. More so because… because of how she is. We’re always calling her, texting her, just to know that our only child is safe and happy. She doesn’t always reply, as you must know.” He tilts his head. “Look where it got us. She barely talks to me except for ‘yes, papa, no, papa, I am okay, papa’.” He lights a cigarette and offers me one. He knows I don’t smoke. Elio can’t stand the smell of smoke. “I don’t know what we did wrong, but I will always blame myself. Because by the time we started to notice things, she was too far away. I don’t know how much she has told you - she gets to decide who she wants to be with you.”

I want to tell him that it’s not his fault. Maybe it’s not a fault. But I am sure he has heard that a million times, maybe even from Elio himself. I want to know. “Did she talk about therapy? Does she talk to you guys?” 

“We wanted to take her to therapy. She threw a tantrum. We asked her to explain how she was feeling.” He takes his glasses off and frowns at the papers on his lap. “What we had to witness…”

He describes how she tried to talk to them. She was trying. But she stammered, through the sobs, she couldn’t say anything intelligible, as though she reenacting her sleep paralysis. She pulled her hair with frustration, her teeth gliding involuntarily. And then she had a seizure. When after a week she opened her mouth again, she couldn’t talk without stammering. Took her two years to get rid of the stammer.

 

I sit there, feeling like the couch swallowing me. The image of Elio screaming and pulling on his hair burned holes behind my eyelids.

 

“We couldn’t help her.” Samuel continues. “That is my failure as a parent. I have failed my only child. And now she keeps the minimum contact. She is… she doesn’t enjoy being around me. And I have no idea why, I don’t know how my _petite fille_ feels. So, instead, I ask her what helps. She says ‘distance’.”

I am silent and still. How blind I have been.

“I hope I don’t cross a line when I say that don’t push her, Oliver. Don’t smother her. She loves you. Don’t walk on eggshells. Don’t see it as though she has a problem. Acknowledge it, but don’t try to solve it. Or she might go too far from you too.” 

 

This scares me. 

Instead of going back upstairs to Elio, I open the latch of the waist length door, descend the stairs that lead to the beach. The beach is empty except for two kids chasing each other. Brothers. Friends. Easy in their skin. Without supervision. Not even caring that a grown-up has entered their private periphery. I watch them for a while. They have things that Elio and I will never have. 

After a while, a woman, possibly their mother, calls from afar and they run to her, racing each other on their way. That is when I realize that it is almost nightfall. I walk up to the rocks. If Elio was here with me, he would smell Samuel's smoke and know that I've been talking to him. I almost take my phone out to call him and ask if he would like to join me. I don’t know how long I spend there thinking. My Elio is suffering. How can I not scramble for a solution?

If only I could tear him open, see inside, then stitch him back up. I am afraid of what I might see. His insides twisted into each other, turning the joints blue? If only blood could speak a language I understood. If only it could change color.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought I would be able to finish this in 2 parts, but I needed to stop it here.  
> So 'to be continued' again -


	10. Our Fearful Trip is Done - Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> couldn't get time to edit. sorry in advance for the mistakes.
> 
> Translations :  
> “Est-ce que tu te sens bien" - "Are you feeling okay?"  
> "Ne t'inquiète pas, chéri" - Don't worry, darling.
> 
>  
> 
> (I _just_ started French course, so these might not be 100% correct.)

I thought staring at the waves for a while would help me make up my mind. For a while, it did. But as soon as I get back to the villa, it is as though I have entered another reality, and I feel my resolve slip away. I go upstairs to wash my face and rid the salty air off my hair before dinner. I am cautious not to disturb Elio, because I don’t know what I would say to him. I am not prepared, not yet. Maybe through dinner, I can run Samuel’s words through my head and decided what part I play in Elio’s life. The things I learned today has changed everything. And it never occurs to me once that maybe I should decide for myself without any influence, or why I should ponder the things as though something has changed between us. 

I watch the lock turn before Elio enters the bathroom. “Where’d you go?” he asks casually, kissing my neck in greeting.

“What if it was Marius here instead of me?” I ask, a bit astonished.

Elio groans. “I know your footstep. You taste salty,” he says licking his lips. His brows furrow and he takes a sniff before accusing me. “Have you been smoking?” he says before going to the toilet to pee.

“You know I don’t smoke.”

“You’ve been with papa.” He says with a knowing tone.

I hum.

“Second-hand smoke is just as bad, you know.”

I nod, looking at him through the mirror. “Worse. But it’s  _ your dad...”  _

“So?” he says cockily.

I know better than to challenge him right now. He flushes the toilet and washes his hand mock-grumpily pushing me away from the sink before going back into the bedroom.  But I find the room is empty when I get in to change my clothes. 

As I join the Perlmans and Marius at the dinner table, I see Elio is already sitting there. This is the first time he has left his room in two days. He is wearing my shirt. But even through the baggy polo, I can tell he is wearing his binder. He is looking around, trying to seem normal while his parents try to engage him in conversation. Thank god there are no guests for dinner tonight. I touch his back and kiss his temple as I sit down next to him. 

It goes uneventful for long enough to make me think that Elio is okay before I sense a vibration beside me. Marius and Samuel are in a deep discussion of which I was a part until I looked at Elio. His fingers a little too tight around the fork, his back a little too straight, his gaze fixed on the risotto as though he is ready to kill it. 

Pretending to not notice it, I casually caress his back, hoping to calm him. But I am not the only one at the table. 

“Piccino…” calls Anella. “Est-ce que tu te sens bien?”

He is stiff as a rock under my palm. It takes him a few seconds to look up, and by that time, the whole table has fallen silent, looking at him with worry. I feel him vibrate. He looks at his mother, then his father, and when Marius repeats Anella’s question in English, Elio looks at him. I desperately want everyone to go back to doing what they were doing instead of staring at Elio and I almost tell them to do just that. Elio beats me to it. He simply stands up, utter 'excuse me' under his breath and marches upstairs.

Anella and Samuel share a knowing glance. This has happened before. Marius is baffled.

“I-I’m sorry… was it something I said?”

I offer him a polite smile before I excuse myself from the table. I hear Anella assuring Marius that it is not him, that perhaps Ellia is not feeling very good.

 

* * *

 

 

Elio has locked the door. I knock, I call him from outside, ask him to at least make a noise to let me know that he is okay and I’ll leave him. I hear nothing. 

Around midnight, Anella finds me sitting on the floor of the veranda. There’s a chilly wind blowing. I am thankful. It feels nice against my skin. It might rain tonight. I think I heard a thunder couple of minutes ago. There is nothing like summer rain and the breeze of relief it brings, like a sigh after drinking a glass of lemonade on a hot day. If it rains, I’m going to miss Elio. I know I will want him in my arms then

If it rains, Elio might let me in.

“She won’t come out just yet, tesoro.” Anella is smiling down at me with a plate in her hand.

I smile a tight-lipped smile. “I know. Doesn’t stop me from trying to get him- uh- her to- to come out. It’s just… habit.” 

Usually I am very calculative. I don’t usually slip. But it’s late, I am tired, I am sad, I am worried. Naturally, addressing him makes me stutter. His parents don’t know our secret language.

She doesn’t pay much attention to it and offers me the plate. “You didn’t finish dinner.”

I actually am hungry.

“There’s more in the fridge,” she says. She pats my hair - something my own mother has stopped doing decades ago. “If a feral little girl comes out and looks for food, help her. Or go take rest downstairs. Mafalda has turned the sofa into a bed for you.” She laughs softly.

She must be worried too; it’s her baby. That's why she is still up. But she doesn’t let it show. Her calm nature helps my anxious mind. The thing about Annella is, she isn’t as open as Samuel. But she is the kindest person I’ve ever come across. And she doesn’t need words to let that be known.

 

Elio hasn’t replied to or seen any of the texts I have sent him. I tried knocking for a while but to no avail - which I stopped after a while because he might have fallen asleep. I decide to do the same when I find myself nodding off around three in the morning. I shoot him another message just in case he needs me and doesn't know where to find me. I hope he has taken off his binder for the night.

God bless Mafalda. I sigh, sinking into the couch. My back cracking, stiff from sitting leaning against the railing for so long. 

It starts raining. Elio doesn’t call me.

I let the cloudburst lull me to sleep.

 

I am not sure what disturbs me first but I frown before I open my eyes. I am met with wet hazel eyes when I open mine. My frown is replaced with a smile before I take in the whole of his beautiful face. “Hey…” I whisper.

He is on his knees in front of the couch. He has been playing with my hair and watching me sleep. “ Désolé…” he says with a heavy voice.

I want to close my eyes again, nose his palm like a spoiled dog and go back to sleep with his fingers weaving through my hair. “I was gonna get up and check on you anyway.” Then my blurry vision adjusts to the darkness of the room and I see that he is not apologizing for waking me up.

“I’m sorry…” he says through a sob.

I can’t sit up fast enough. Taking his face between my palm, I try to calm him down. Dabbing away his tears that are replaced immediately by fresher drops. “Shh… it’s okay, it’s okay.”

“I wanna go, I wanna go. I-” With a shuddering noise, he struggles to take in a breath.

“Go where?”

“Home. I wanna go home.”

“Baby…” I stop and look into his eyes. “This  _ is _ home.” I fear that he has gone out of his mind. Within a second, terrible scenarios flash before my eyes - scenarios from my nightmares that keep me up at night. I can’t let this happen. I must call his parents, call a doctor. I must calm him down. He is having some sort of an attack. “You are home. In Crema. Remember we are on vacation here?”

Clutching my wrists, he keeps shaking his head. “No- no. New York. I wanna go back. I wanna go home.”

I let out a sigh of relief. “Is it because of Marius? I’ll talk to your parents, I promise. We can figure something out. And babe, there is nothing for you to be jealous about.”

“No, NO! No. I can’t- I can’t… I can’t stay,” he takes another shaking breath in. “I can’t, please, Oliver, please! Take me home.” 

“Look at me, sweetheart, look at me,” I say as calmly as I can with my heart racing still. He does. I wipe his tears again. “Breathe with me, okay? You don’t have to do anything, don’t have to think, just follow me.” I push his palm against my chest. “In, out… in, out. Just keep looking at me.”

When out routine is done, he has calmed down a little. I rub his back soothingly, his face, push his bangs off his forehead and wipe his tears again. Then I ask tenderly, “do you know what’s causing it this time?”

He nods.

“Can you tell me?”

I see his breathing starting to get frantic again. He hates trying to find the words for what he feels because he usually fails to, and it frustrates him to the point of pulling out his own hair. “No, no, shh… shh… You don’t have to- just tell me what it is, one word. I’ll help you, I promise, Elio.”

It takes him quite some time before he can utter the next words. “I can’t stay with papa here.”

 

* * *

I pack the bags that same night. Get everything ready to leave hours later. Book a hotel room in Rome for the next day. I don’t think Elio is well enough for the long flight to New York. I don’t know how to tell his parents without breaking their hearts. I will certainly not make Elio do it. But then again, I gather they are already aware of some of it, if not the whole of it.

It all adds up. Handing over the phone every time his father calls, him being Elio throughout the whole vacation, locking himself in the bedroom and avoiding meals, getting up from the dinner table or the table in the backyard because Samuel was there or he was the one talking. I even found him in the attic once. There was an old futon there, a radio, a couple of books and some peaches that he was eating. The place looked like a hideout of a kid. And he confessed that he used to come here often as a kid.

I am reminded of what he said on our first date. I ask later when it all started. He doesn’t know when. Just that it got worse as he grew up. He needs distance. There is no other way.  For a while he tries to explain it, explain how he doesn’t hate his father, he loves him. I stop him before he gets flustered. He needn’t justify himself to me. All he does get out is that he can’t be the same in front of Samuel. It is not Samuel’s fault, he does nothing differently. It is as though there is a balance scale inside of Elio that starts dangling and can’t quite determine the balance when Samuel is around. He doesn’t know _who to be_ when he is around Samuel. And being one or the other brings a pang of shame and embarrassment - something he can't stand or understand. And me being here as his partner has made it worse.

We leave before Samuel is out of bed. Annella assures me that she understands and will talk to him. “ Ne t'inquiète pas, chéri. Sammy won’t mind at all. You two have fun.”

We stay in Rome for a week before heading back home. 

Home is in New York.


	11. Life Demands

 

“I think it’s out.”

 

* * *

 

Elio is not a heavy sleeper. The tiniest noise wakes him. So I tentatively place my palm on his tummy - the result of our love lies there, something both of us combined. It sleeps.  
This cry of us, trying to merge into each other's bodies every time we make love - inside him lies the bloom of it.

 

* * *

 

He is not forward after that last time. It left a scar. On both of us. So when he stands naked before me, his eyes don’t meet mine. I have done my research, I want to tell him I am ready. I want to ask him if he is. He timidly takes my hand and brings it to the leaking spot between his thighs. I let him do what he wants. He sighs, thinks for a second before removing my hand and placing it on his buttocks.

Without meeting my eyes, he says, “take care of me,” mirroring what I always tell him just before making love to him.

I palm his jaw and gently tilt his face up. The frenzy of last time is absent. His eyes are calm, gentle, and wanting. It is not a war waged against himself. This time it is just desire.

And so I take care of him. He doesn’t bleed. He weeps out of ecstasy when he reaches his climax.

Time never matters to us. We have been together for more than three years at this point, but it took us mere weeks together to find utter intimacy. We don’t shy away from each other when it comes to this. Elio tells me what he needs and I try to be who he wants me to be. And I don’t know where my sexuality stands anymore. I seem to only crave my Elio/Ellia in whichever way he offers.

He isn’t shy when he asks for a dildo nor when he asks if he can finger me. I let him. I have been straight my whole life. And he hasn’t done this to anyone before. So we take it slow. I talk him through it. This is the most painful experience of my life.  
And when he sees my tears, he does ask. But he should know that, as long as I have air in my lungs, I will never tell him that he is causing me pain. I let him penetrate me with the dildo. It was all worth it when I saw his face as he thrust into me with the strap-on — bliss. As though he has dreamed about this and the dream can not even hold a candle to the real thing.

Then one day, he asks for something even more bizarre.

I rub myself against the bedding as I close my mouth around the rubbery material of the toy.

 

Sometimes I wonder if I am lying to myself and if there is a beast inside of me who is digesting all the partiality and will burst out one day to ruin us. I am no saint. Elio knows it as much as I do. Sometimes, regrettably, I lose it. And I have nothing to justify it with. I am not the one suffering. I barely scratch the surface when it comes to understanding what Elio has to go through.

 

We become adventurous. In order to forget my self and give everything to my Elio/Ellia, I loosen my grip on the wheel a little. I forget condoms and fail to refuse my love when she cries, “in me, in me…”

 

So I blame myself when I tentatively place my palm on his tummy. The result of our love lies there, something both of us combined. It sleeps. It will never wake.

Elio doesn’t want it. “It will kill me,” he said to me through the sobs.

I am scared. I don’t know what he might do if he decides to keep it. His constant change will be more prominent because of the pregnancy. He might end up harming himself. I can’t lose him.

But this cry of us, trying to merge into each other's bodies every time we make love - inside him lies the bloom of it. How can I let this go? How can I let this flush down the toilet?

When I look up at Elio's sleeping, tranquil face, I am reminded that this, this. Am I selfish to think that Elio is more important? But I would flush the toilet time and time again if it means I get to keep him. It will scar me but I will do it.

 

* * *

 

 

You are not supposed to bleed after taking mifepristone, but he does. I guess that's all it took to end the life inside. It was supposed to stop the fetus from growing for now. Then another medication would do the final job of miscarriage. But Elio's body decided on its own. It is not common. There are chances of all kinds of dangers, infections. We don't even know how far along he was. He should have been taken to a hospital or at least should have consulted a doctor. But he won’t let me. Won’t even let me call his parents. And I didn't have it in me to think anymore. What would be the worse case? He wouldn't die, unlike the baby.

 

He was the sole center of my universe. But when our child comes in question, the two people involved, their whole world tumbles.  Elio is no longer the only priority. But the abundance of altruism and love in me for the fetus was bouncing off the empty wall and hitting me in the face as though to say, 'look what you are capable of.' I don’t know what to do with it. Like the full breasts of a new mother who has lost her child. It has no use, no function now, but it's there, it's leaking, the mother is born even though there is no child left.

 

He keeps sitting on the toilet, scratching his belly with one hand and clutching my shirt with the other as his head rests on my shoulder and, shaking uncontrollably, he weeps. The pain is unbearable, and his screams paralyze me. All I can do is keep rubbing his back while I fight back tears. After a while, I realize he is no longer screaming because of the pain alone.

Hours pass. We sit there in the toilet, clutching each other, huffing out the last of our tears.

 

“I think it’s out,” he whispers.

 

* * *

 

 

With the little energy that I have left in me, I take him to the shower.

Under the warm spray of the shower, I hear him say against my chest, "you hate me." The red I saw as I flushed the toilet hasn’t removed itself from the back of my lids yet.

He should be comforted, told that he is loved, that what he did was his choice and his alone. But I'm not sure. I can't say anything, it doesn't feel right. So I wrap my arms around him and say 'no' time after time. I don't hate him. I don't think I can ever hate him. But I am not sure what I feel for him right now other than that.

I clothe him, I give him the pad, I dry his hair. I hand him the misoprostol anyway. If we're doing this, better do this all the way. He doesn't complain. He takes it as though it is routine for us. I softly brush his hair until he falls asleep. His eyes dry finally. That's when the downpour in mine begins. I hope the hiccups don't wake him. I look at his soft face. The more I cry the less I can stand his sleeping figure. I remove myself and go to the living room. I sleep there that night.


	12. Muzzle the Sorrow

Elio is running away from me. I don't know where we are but the air smells like his home, it smells like Crema. Dark bouncing curls, red polo, shorts, and bare feet that make it seem as though he weighs nothing, as though gravity works differently for them every time they connect with the ground and he leaps, floats. I run after him. I yell for him to stop. I know he can hear me but he neither stops nor turns around. I can't tell for how long I have been chasing him but I am out of breath. The soles of my feet burn and I look down to see that I am barefoot as well. I get the sense that he has stolen my shoes. Is that why I am chasing him? But no, this is not a game. There's a searing pain in my chest. If I let him out of my sight, he will run off the edge of the Earth. I can't lose him.  _ Elio, please, stop!  _  I yell so loud it makes my eyes water and I don't hold back. I hope my heavy voice will stop him. It doesn't. 

He turns a corner, and when I reach out, he is nowhere to be seen. I am left all alone in front of the river that we bathed in together one summer.

 

* * *

 

"You don't get to do that," says Elio, pulling me out of my trance.

Raindrops patter against the window. It's a gloomy day in New York. We hate it.

How long has he been standing there? The tender skin around his eyes is purple. I just notice it now that I see him from afar in days. We have drifted afar. I ignore looking at him to avoid that same pain in my chest. Because a part of me that never saw completion resurrects himself. But when I do let myself see his face, he is always close beside me. Has he been eating enough? Have I been neglecting him? I forgot that taking care of him was routine, we both had fallen into the routine. Licking my own wound, I forgot that my pampering has made Elio dependant and a sudden pang of guilt spreads in my chest.

Elio is not the same after all that.

The day I woke up from that nightmare, I found myself alone in bed just like in the dream. He had left me. The tender violet rays of the just rising sun peeked into the room as I looked for him. At last I found him in the kitchen. He stood there unmoving. In the middle of the kitchen. His arms hanging on both sides. Facing the window. I thought he was watching the sunrise. But as I walked slowly towards him so as not to make him jump, I noticed that he was staring into the middle distance. His hooded eyes empty. His mouth hanging open. I could hear the buzzing sound that his every breath was making. He had caught a cold. Or was it his sinus again? 

I gently cupped his face and lifted it up to see what was wrong. His eyes struggled to focus. When they did, one eye remained hooded while the other was almost closed. It was like holding an empty vessel in my hands. I checked his nose; he was not breathing through them. And when I slid my hands down to check his fever, his head fell forward to clash with my chin.

That was weeks ago. But it keeps happening. In front of the piano, in the bathroom. He lies awake at night and sometimes I find him asleep on the floor, in the balcony, in the living room. I want to say it is getting better now but I don't know if I only say that because I want it to be better. Because I am tired. I want to live again. Why can't I remember what life was like before this? Plenty of people have abortion. It wasn't supposed to be a big deal.

But it's a gloomy day and the cold breeze brings sorrow with it. It brings every ache, every regret from childhood till the day I flushed my child down the toilet. And as it pours, I fail to stop the moisture that glides down my face.

"You don't get to do that " He stands there, leaning against the doorframe. This is the first time in a while he has talked more than the yes and no that I've been getting. Maybe it's the rain. Maybe it was me being vulnerable

I dry my eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm fine, I promise."

Elio shakes his head. "You don't get to do that."

"No?"

"You don't get to cry alone." He walks to me to the couch and sits facing me. Cupping my face, he kisses the eyes. "Have I told you I am sorry?"

He has. A million times. Even in his sleep sometimes. "You don't have to apologize to anyone. You didn't do anything wrong."

"But I am sorry though. And who else do I say it to? You're all I have."

"That's not true. You have your parents. And your friends-"

"You. Are. All. I have. Everything."

Of course, I am. I birthed him.

"And I've taken something away from you. You're crumbling down right before my eyes. How much of the Oliver that I met four years ago is left in there anymore? It's not fair… it's not fair. How can I not be sorry? I am well aware of what a pathetic person I am. I see that it's all too much for you, how much I am hurting you. I see how hard it is for you to look at me. And you’ll always find yourself crying alone. I can't stand it. You don't deserve this. Release me. So I can take solace in the simple perfection of knowing you."

I frown and don't say anything for a while. The buzzing noise is still there. He is still sick. And he has been going to classes and to work in this state. When did I become so blind? Do I even live in reality anymore? How did I let the best thing in my life break and then break some more because I am not used to handling simple sorrows of life? The first touch of real sorrow and I've let the source of my light dim down so low that he is ready to quit me.

I frown. "If you're saying what I think you're saying, I want you to stop talking _right now_. There is not a single version of reality where I am far from you and happy. We are not discussing this."

Elio looks down. I know it is because he is crying again. I let him.

"Marry me."

Elio huffs out a laugh through his tears. "You'll wake up tomorrow kicking yourself for saying that."

"Look at me." He does. "Marry me."

He sighs. "You don't want that."

"I wouldn't be fucking saying it if I didn't."

"You do know how I feel about all this?"

"Yes, you hate permanency. Yes, it doesn't mean shit whether there is a legal document binding us or not. That, Elio, that's exactly it. It doesn't matter, being married wouldn't hurt anyway." I take a breath. "Elio, you know neither of us will ever find again what we've found with each other. So let us have this. Let us replace this tragedy with something beautiful. Let  _ yourself _ be happy for once."

 

I buy the ring the next day. I go home to find that Elio has bought one for me too. Just a simple band. But it seems as though it is proclaiming my love for my person, my Elio, and my Ellia.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm uploading this on an impulse and I might even delete it if people hate it. I apologize if I'm politically incorrect or offensive in any way and because I don't know what to tag. This is really close to home and it was hard for me to write, so much so that I had totally forced myself to forget about it (if that makes any sense...) until it accidentally popped up while I was working on something else. I don't know if there should be any trigger warning but please do tell me if there should be.


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